Celebrities Lead Charge Against Scientology
November 22, 2009 by XENU TV
Filed under Latest News
A great new article in the UK’s Guardian talks about Scientology’s recent troubles from the leak of the Tom Cruise tape, to the departures of Jason Beghe and Paul Haggis, up the the current mega-flap from Australia. It all kicks off with the death of Scientologist attorney Earl Cooley.
The security at the red-brick and glass-walled horseshoe of the John Joseph Moakley courthouse on Boston’s waterfront was unusually tight. Anybody who was not a member of the city’s bar association was swept with a search wand. Photo IDs were checked. Mobile phones were taken from guests, who included the Hollywood star Tom Cruise.
The occasion was a memorial service for Scientology’s top legal adviser for a quarter of a century, Earle Cooley. The controversial head of Scientology worldwide, David Miscavige, delivered the eulogy, thanking his late friend for his contribution to the neo-religion during his career, much of which was spent pursuing journalists and former members who spoke out against it.
Miscavige may since have wondered privately what Cooley would have made of the events of last week. Scientology, founded in 1953 by the late science fiction pulp novelist, serial fantasist and inveterate self-publicist L Ron Hubbard, is under fire again across the globe, following years of struggle to be recognised – with some success – as a legitimate church.
The church has just been denounced in the strongest possible terms in the Australian parliament. Prime minister Kevin Rudd has expressed his concern over allegations of “a worldwide pattern of abuse and criminality” and is contemplating a parliamentary inquiry. The organisation is under police investigation and yesterday angry ex-Scientologists, spurred on by the claims, converged on its Australian headquarters calling for its tax-exempt status to be revoked.
And it is not only in Australia that Scientology is facing problems. A new book in America – Blown for Good: Behind the Iron Curtain of the Church of Scientology – by Marc Headley, an employee of the church’s Los Angeles headquarters for 15 years, details – as others have – allegations of systematic abuse and bizarre episodes, such as the three weeks Headley claims he spent under instruction from Cruise in how to move bottles and other objects by concentrating on them.
Headley’s book follows a year in which Scientology has been plagued by unwelcome revelations from high-profile defectors and fresh media investigation into its practices.
Last month the church narrowly avoided being banned in France after being prosecuted for fraud, following claims that four leaders – all given suspended jail sentences – had preyed financially on several followers in the 1990s. In Belgium, too, Scientology is embroiled in a long criminal investigation. Perhaps most embarrassing for an organisation that prides itself on its wealthy Hollywood followers, Oscar-winning director Paul Haggis, an adherent of 30 years, abandoned Scientology in October, accusing it of homophobia.
You can read the full article here. Marty Rathbun shares his memories of Earl Cooley at his blog. My memories aren’t as golden. I know Cooley through his appearances on TV, like this one on 60 Minutes back in 1985 in which he and Heber Jentzsch team up against Mike Wallace and are sadly outmatched.
Tommy Davis’s recent blunders are reminiscent Heber Jentzsch’s performance in the linked video. Davis appears to be attempting to convey the same kind of shock and outrage that anyone would look askance at his cult, but he is not nearly as good at it (not that Jentzsch was particularly convincing himself).
It seems like EVERY recent article that blasts CoS has Tom Cruise’s picture antero. Where’s DM? Why isn’t he in front of the cameras defending his church? He and Tom have to be crapping bricks right now.
7:25 in the video is crucial.
Wow. They really don’t change their tactics. Even after they have been exposed and countered time and time again.
Homer Shomer is a fabulous name! Call the Coen Bros. Good stuff, and the last defense (“It was the Interpol run by teh Nazis!!!11!!!”) is the icing.
DM will NEVER come out and defend his church. This is obvious in all the videos of Tommy Davis completely FAILING at being a PR machine, looking like he’s just been beaten by tiny fists after days of no sleep. Above all, David Miscavige is a coward.
I agree, Humanist…it is quite hilarious/pathetic that their talk and ways of acting are THE SAME as always. The same, same old story. Again and again.
The reason you don’t see DM is because of the lesson he learned when he did his only televised interview – he’s not as smart as he thinks he is. Sad really when you consider he is at the pinnacle of Scientology – you know the more you learn and move through the grades the more intelligent you are.
Think of their most promoted celebs – Tom Cruise & John Travolta. Now consider their fan base. Along with that consider their ‘public status’. We love them – they’re movie stars and then scientologists. DM however is head of scientology – and nothing else. No warm & fuzzies when you look at his picture. Anyone who has researched, even a little, has their blood run cold at the very sight of him.
It is things like this that cause me to have mixed feelings about Rathbun. He is speaking out only against DM. He is still 100% Scientologist and believes in all of it. Probably even XENU too. He still opposes psychiatry, reveres LRH as a benevolent and brilliant teacher, and he still admires all of these old school Co$ warriors like Cooley. These people helped the cult get away with lots of despicable antics over the years.
Good riddance.
Paging Mike Wallace –
Time for a recap and update on this story!
Rathbun and those two in the video are the top soldiers among the manic adherents who cleverly crafted the means to get away with their LRH sanctioned crimes, again and again, and the talk of Valhalla by Rathbun in the eulogy is quite pathetic as ultimately they are all victims of the CoS and not noble in any way.
Rathbun smells like a Rat. The scilon blinders are still in place. His reason for leaving the flock appears soley to be intolerance of DM and that only after decades of ardent participation in the significant damaging of humanity perpetrated by the CoS. I support any efforts to help those that have been abused but the Rat should be right after DM when it comes to payback.
Rainman